I'd forgotten what it was like, sitting in the back of the car, whilst mum and dad argued over every little thing.
"You should have gone that way." "Well, why didn't you say so?" I've been listening to a constant stream of disagreement, exacerbated, no doubt, by my father's insistence that I need a replacement tube of rubber cement (for bike punctures), and me asking them whether we could stop somewhere to get a cat scratching post.

I have decided to give this cat-training one last ditch attempt. When I move to my sister's I'll have to part with my beloved Spartacus, unless he can be rehabilitated as safe for furniture, stair carpets and wooden doorframes.
I chose an intriguingly entitled "carpet scratch post" from the plethora of Feline Entertainment Centres, eschewing the dubious delights of the £100 Feline Pioneer and the £80 Feline Ranger for something I could carry to the car. Mind you, I am wondering whether I might have been better buying the cat Pyramid, wherein he could have slumbered for a thousand years without ageing, and continuing the tradition between cats and the egyptians.
I have some training spray from the last abortive attempt at taming the wild beast, which I like to call "Cat B Gone". It smells of lemon, but it's very bitter to the taste, which can be annoying if you've just sprayed everywhere, and then forgotten to scrub your hands several times with caustic soda or the like. With luck (a lot of it), I'll persuade Spartacus to mend his scratching ways in a month, or kill us both trying!

I need to speak to my father. he forgets that motorway sliproads are not pitlanes. Sadly, both he and my mother are from racedriving stock, my dad used to do the Liverpool Fleetwood challenge - 50 miles in 50 minutes, bearing in mind that this was before the advent of motorways, not to mention ABS. Oh well, you may think. Your mum must be more sedate. No, She learnt to drive in a Healey Sprite, a tiny little sportscar with a great big engine. So naturally, I am a crazy driver, except I seem to crash more...
I'd best stop now. The car is weaving like a thing possessed, and it's making me quite ill...